Another End to Another Year

I am really going to do better about blogging. Since school has started it has been difficult for me to really post anything significant, due to the fact that if I am not at work, I am studying for my classes. But soon, very soon actually my class will be over and I will have more opportunity to post. This semester I am taking Church History and Christian Theology. Both classes have been really challenging, however I have learned so much and I am really excited about how far I have come in just this year. I prayed so hard for so long for God to open doors for seminary school, and it all just fell right into place. I am excited about where I am at right now, and excited about where this will take me.
This year has sort of been a blur. I am not that comfortable with that feeling actually. I have been reminded recently how bad it is to wish your life away and not living for today but the weekend, or vacation. For example we all say "I wish the weekend was now" or "I will be okay when this is over." How boring is that? I mean yeah we all want really good things to happen to us. However we can't just wait until the next exciting thing happens. We have to live for today and not for the weekend or for next year for that matter. People always say "Next year will be better!" or "January 1st starts my diet!". Well why not start your diet today, or make today the best day ever? God gave us this day for a reason and we must not postpone happiness, when it is available today!
We are not guaranteed another day on this Earth, and although we do not like to talk about it much, we must realize that we have to make TODAY the best day it can be. Everyone is on a journey and on the way to where you need to be, why not make the ride fun, enjoyable and exciting? Life is better that way, I assure you! I wake up every morning and say that this morning will be the best day ever, because it makes my day really enjoyable. I find myself getting really excited about what will happen and who I will talk to and learn from. It is amazing!
One finally example of this lesson I have been learning. Having a career and living life, I could choose to wait around until I get married. Not fully enjoying life because I didn't have someone to share it with. However, on the days when I was a hopeless romantic (crying while watching a sappy movie) I would say to God " I have faith that you have someone for me, and I can't wait till you reveal him to me". I turned the "whoa is me" attitude and turned it around into me praising God and speaking the faith that I know He has someone to me. Now I am not saying that by doing this will bring Prince Charming any faster. However what I am saying is that I enjoyed the ride on the way to where I am going. I would hate to admit to myself when I do meet Mr. Right, that "Yeah I just waited around for so-n-so. Didn't really live, just kinda survived."....ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!! Life is to be lived to day!!!!!! So my last words on this post to you is GET STARTED, LIFE IS HERE! God Bless you all!!!!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel is Near....

I was in the middle of studying and realized I had not "blogged" in a while. So I thought I would stop and type for a little while. Life has been extremely busy. School has been going really well. I made an A in my first class, and I am almost finished with my second. I have one paper and one final and that is it for the summer. I have really enjoyed learning in my classes. The studying has been pretty intense, but when I finish I realize how much information that I have learned, and can take with me for the rest of my life. I am taking the summer off, for some much needed rest, but I am excited about my classes in the fall.

The class I am currently in is New Testament Orientation II. This class is much more difficult than my first class. The New Testament has so much information and going into it, since I have read the NT many times before, I really thought I would have much of the background information already. Apparently, I did not know what I was thinking, because I am learning so much more than I ever thought I would. I have such an appreciation for both the New Testament and the Old Testament. I am loving all of this, and it is such a rewarding experience.

This process of going to school, learning, studying, passing has been such an amazing experience. I have been wanting to go to Seminary school for so long, and have known that God placed this desire in my heart for a reason. When looking back and visioning how this all has played out, and how easy it was for me to start going, and having time to study as hard as I do, it is all God. God really has placed this with favor in my life, and although I have to do the work, this is in no way shape or form easy, God has given me peace to really focus and study well. This experience really demonstrates to me, that God does have a plan for each of our lives and when He gives us a desire and you know without a shadow of a doubt that this is His will, it will work out. It took me 2 1/2 years to start after the initial feeling, and yet I just continued with my life, and finished my undergrad and tried for a job, and even worked for a year before it all came to be.

When I remembered how this all worked out, it really puts into perspective things that I know God has told me now and I am still waiting for them. I do not want to waste my life away just waiting when I know it will come to pass, but I just have to be patient and wait. Many times, I find myself consumed with what I want, and I do not just live and when it comes it comes.

When I knew I was going to seminary but it had not happened yet, I didn't stop living, I wasn't consumed with it. I knew it would happen and I just kept doing what I knew I needed to do so that it would happen.

Life is really good right now. Now don't get me wrong, I could pick out things that are wrong, and dwell and be unhappy. However, as I am sitting on my couch and watching Little People Big World (lol) life is great. My job is almost over, I only have 4 weeks until summer vacation. I really have sooooo many things to be happy about and proud of myself about.

Things will never be perfect and I will never have everything I want, but I am happy. I will keep working and striving for better and strive to be a better person for God. But I am not ashamed to say that I think I am doing pretty well right now. God has given me so much, and I am really realizing that by leaning more on Him and less on myself, I am at peace.

I have lived by myself for about 6 months now, and its so easy to nit-pick everything wrong and things I haven't done right because no one else is around to blame it on. But I am learning everyday how to lean on God more and more. I still have so many things to work through and on, but in the words of Joyce Meyer "I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be". I will praise God for that. I remember so many times I would think to myself "I am never going to be able to change this or that"...and I was right, by myself I can't. But with God I was able to. I was able to stand strong and live by myself and manage my money and go to school and go to work, and really work on some of my negative aspects. I was able to do it, because of God.

Life is good, and the moral of the story is: Instead of thinking about all the wrong things that are going on in your life, or wrong things about you, praise God that you aren't where you used to be, and that will motivate you to move closer to God so you can become more like Him.

Praise God, and may He bless you!

A New Year

It has been awhile since I have posted anything. That should tell you a little, on how my life has been so crazy the last couple of months. It is now February, and it seems like last week was Christmas or at least New Years.

Some new things have happened since my last post: I started Seminary school (Liberty University) and I have started my growth group with MyChurch. Some amazing things have happened, and although my plate is full, it is all with things that I am so excited to be a part of.

I am a students again! I am so excited about that. I really expected me to slide back into that old mind set in my under-graduate years, and yet, it is not that same.

I have learned so much in just the past couple of weeks from my lesson. I am currently taking Old Testament Orientation. I have to tell you, I have never been a bible student (unless you count the six weeks in third grade that I attended a Christian school). All of this information that I am learning, has given me such a new found respect for the Old Testament. When I previously read the OT I really couldn't understand much of it. I understood most of the stories, Psalms, and Proverbs, but really I felt that the New Testament was what I really enjoyed more. Now, I am just so interested in the OT. I would have never imagined the amazing things I have found in my studies. The most rewarding thing so far is how much I am learning about God.

God's mercy is one thing that I have learned so much more about. The Israelite's would continuously turn away from their Father, and yet God is always there to take them back. He wants to love them, and show them His mercy. His arms are always reached out for them, and He is ready to bless them. They would turn and worship foreign pagan gods, and not respect anything that the LORD has done for them.

When thinking about this, I wonder how would God's chosen people be so quickly to turn away from God and towards these foreign idols that our Father is so adamantly against? Then I realized that although our modern society of Christians would look down on any other Christian turning away from God to worship idols, we have put things before God. Isn't that in essence idolatry? I think it is.

There are many times that I have found myself too busy that by the end of the day, I haven't read my Bible at all, or stopped to talk to God. We tend to be so busy with the things that God has blessed us with (jobs, friends, children, food, etc) that we forget to thank and praise the one that gave it to us. We start getting too comfortable in our nice life and forget to realize why it is so comfortable. This has really had some influence on how I chose to spend my free time. I am not going to say that I will never be too busy again or that I won't forget to read my Bible. But what I will always keep in mind, is that although the stories in the Bible are from the past and many of the same situations are not the same, we still have something to learn from the inspired word of God given to us from the prophets. We would not still be here on earth if there wasn't anything for us to learn from the Bible and from God's inspired words.

That is just one of the things that I have learned so far from my studies. It so far has been an amazing ride, and I can't wait to tell you more about it!

I do not know where God is leading me and the reason behind going to Seminary school, other than that I really felt that I was called to go, and after everything worked out so perfectly, I knew it was in God's plan for me to go. But, I am learning so much, and I am leaning on God more than ever. He has become my firm and steady rock in every situation.

Living alone, and dealing with life on my own has been difficult after everything settled down. But I praise God for this gift that He has given me, and I praise Him for the journey He is taking me on. Life has become so amazing, and on my worst day, I still have God, in whom, I can share all of it with. That is the best part of my life right now. I am so excited about this new year, and the many things that I will learn and grow from in it.